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Meet the Human Barbie

I’ve never been one of those anti-Barbie moms. I love Barbie as a kid, and firmly understood that she was a doll, not a goal. And even if she were a goal, there was no way someone could pull of Barbie’s estimated 39”x18”x30” figure with 16 percent body fat.

Apparently, that message was lost on Valeria Lukyanova, better known as The Human Barbie Doll.

The Ukrainian model has gained a more than half a million fans on her Facebook page, where she posts scantily clad photos of herself that show off her tiny waist, full breasts and long legs. Her frozen poses and porcelain makeup add to the Barbie effect.

For more than a year now, Lukyanova has been a staple of sites like Reddit and BuzzFeed that sometimes traffic in the freakier side of life. But recently she’s surfaced anew because a website called TheDirty.com has accused her of having undergone plastic surgery – charges she has long denied.

“Many people say bad things about people who want to perfect themselves,” Lukyanova told V magazine, which recently featured pictures of her along with A-listers Scarlett Johannsen and Rihanna. “It's hard work, but they dismiss it as something done by surgeons or computer artists. This is how they justify not wanting to strive for self-improvement."

The furor over whether she’s had work done is a “scandal” about as phony as her looks and, OK, I’ll admit that I can’t stop staring in amazement at Valeria’s photos. She’s got some real talent in pulling off the look. But it’s equal part disturbing. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not on Valeria’s body. (Is that her God-given nose? Are those eyes photoshopped?)

One thing I know for sure: I’m not showing this to my daughter! What about you?